Saturday, January 29, 2011

Week One Of Six (A Shaker Style Wall Cabinet)

I have enrolled in a wood working class at The NCSU Craft Center Woodworking Shop.

The shop has many tools (Here are the ones I used today):

The Joiner

The Planer

The Radial Arm Saw

The Miter Saw

The Table Saw (It has "Saw-Stop" technology - Which will stop/crash the blade within two teeth of movement when it detects flesh)

A built in saw-dust vacuum (with floor vents you can open with your foot and sweep in saw dust that escapes the vacuum system)

I am working on a solid cherry shaker-style wall cabinet with a two panel door and movable interior shelves.

It will be put together with absolutely no bits of iron at all (except for the hinges and the little pins you stick in the holes in the inside to adjust the shelves) --- and I'm working on how to do the hinges without iron.

The cabinet box (sides and top) are joined together with a tongue and groove system. The back is set in a 'rabbit-joint'. The door will be joined together with mortise and tenon joints. The raised panel will be floated in the two areas of the door.

Today we:

[1] Cut the raw board into four pieces, two long and two short using the radial saw and the miter saw that the instructor preset to length.

[2] We then joined and planed the four boards. My boards came out 5/8 of an inch thick. One of the long sides does have a knot in it but it actually looks pretty good (I like it).

[3] Identified the 'good-side'/'good-edge' and joined the 'good-edge'.

[4] We then ripped the four boards to width (plus 1/16 inch) using the table saw to waste the bad-edge.

[5] We then joined the table-saw-cut-edge to get the width's 'just-so'. At this very point we had four absolutely beautiful cherry boards.

[6] We then cut the 'rabbits'. This was done by doing a face-to-the-fence cut on the table saw followed by flipping the board and doing a face-down-cut using the same saw height/width to cut out a very nice 1/4 inch rabbit. This rabbit will receive the back of the cabinet.

[7] We then used the radial arm saw to cut one end of each of the long boards (sides) square then pushed it down to the 'stop' and cut it to length. We repeated the same maneuver with the miter saw on the short boards. The instructor again set the stops for us.

[8] I'll post some pictures when I get them and post another whole item each week giving updates on how it goes.